It is a cold day. It feels like there's ice outside. The sky is bright blue but fragile. It always feels like this when junk is seeping out your body. It's as if all the evils of all the world are hanging about outside waiting to descend upon you. Wind, noises, rain, smell, light. It is all there and all intrusive, like the the unwelcome touch of an unwanted lover. Coming off heroin feels like rape.

I haven't cleaned up yet, but I did scoop all my needles and little aluminium cups into a box. Not because they tempt me, more, if I'm truthful so as the filters don't get soiled and I can reuse them if I'm ever really desperate. I tried to ignore the mess as I stumbled around but I couldn't help thinking I'd never get my deposit back on the apartment. I think in eight months I've caused so much damage as it will need to be completely renovated. I've not tried to do that, door handles and shower curtains just fall off when I touch them. Since I've been here there's been one fire, one flood, an explosion, broken door, two sparking radiators, the shower unit has ripped out the wall and the light above the hob has melted. The bathroom units are all burnt where I've left cigarettes burn down as I either struggled to find veins or stood gouched over the sink thinking of removing the needle. What was a few months ago a fresh start is now just as stale as any other end in history. The place reeks of heroin, it is everywhere. I don't think it can be cleaned up.

Physically I feel better than this morning. Methadone takes about two days to get completely in the system and to work away all the little aches and pains. Those two days are not horrendous but uncomfortable. Make no mistake about it, what I will be describing in these posts is not heroin withdrawal, it is about the transition from two drugs to one. I am stopping heroin for a moment and sticking solely to my methadone script. If this were cold turkey or proper withdrawal there would not be a post for weeks. Any addict who says they wrote under withdrawal (as it happened) I don't believe. It is a crippling condition and does not leave you the luxury or poetry to describe your own dying. Imagine laying in some war zone with your guts spilled out and the good side of your head ripped off. How ridiculous would it be to ask for a pen and piece of paper? Not even the most narcissistic person in the world could get away with that... not even an Englishman.

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ShaneI can physically feel the pain that is woven into these last two posts, the words are brutal and to the point, its as though your soul has taken over and started comunicating with the world..I often wonder if the pain that comes with junkie life will ever dissipate, and do i actually want it to, where did it all go wrong...or...where did it all go right...the choice is made according to the persons view point i suppose..Take good care...Kympton....x

As usual, you capture the essence of heroin habits with your opening paragraph on the gloom of withdrawals - you should read Jerry Stahl's 'Permanent Midnight'? He put it this way: "on smack … you see, when the first fast rush courses north to glory, the smiles of all the unseen beings in the world nodding in the shadows. All the benevolence in the universe makes itself known. The spirits reveal themselves because they know, when the rushing stops, and the gush wears off, you’ll forget all about them. You’ll see the world then in a different way: as an awful, hateful place, where every breeze that blows is like the hateful breath of Moloch on your flesh". How horribly hellishly true

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